At Intelligence Committee Hearing, Senator Collins Questions Intelligence Community Leaders
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Washington, D.C. - At a U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing this morning, U.S. Senator Susan Collins, a member of the committee, questioned intelligence community leaders.
Witnesses at today’s hearing included:
- Daniel R. Coats, Director of National Intelligence
- Andrew McCabe, Acting Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Admiral Michael S. Rogers, Director of the National Security Agency
- Rod J. Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney General of the Department of Justice
A transcript of Senator Collins’ Q&A with the witnesses follows:
COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Director Coats, first let me thank you for a very cogent explanation of Section 702 and the fact that it cannot be used to target any person in the United States, whether or not that person is an American. I think there’s a lot of confusion about Section 702, and I appreciate your clear explanation this morning.
I have a question for each of you that I would like to ask, and I want to start with Adm. Rogers. Adm. Rogers, did anyone at the White House direct you on how to respond today, or were there discussions of executive privilege?
ROGERS: Have I asked the White House is it their intent to invoke executive privilege? Yes. The answer I gave you today reflects my answer, no one else’s.
COLLINS: Director Coats?
COATS: My answer is exactly the same.
COLLINS: Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein?
ROSENSTEIN: I have not had any communications with the White House about invoking executive privilege today.
COLLINS: Director McCabe?
MCCABE: I have not had any conversations with the White House about executive privilege today, either.
COLLINS: Adm. Rogers, in January, the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and N.S.A. jointly issued an intelligence committee assessment on Russian involvement in the presidential elections. You’ve testified today that the I.C. relied, in part, on 702 authorities to support its conclusion that the Russians were involved in trying to influence the 2016 elections. Can you provide us with an update on N.S.A.’s further work in this area?
ROGERS: In terms of the Russian efforts?
COLLINS: Yes.
ROGERS: Yes ma’am. We continue to focus analytic and collection effort trying to generate insights as to what the Russians and others are doing particularly with respect to U.S. infrastructure, U.S. processes like elections, we continue to generate insights on a regular basis. If my memory is right, I testified before the SSCI, we did open threat assessment. In that hearing, I think it was the 11th of May, I reiterated that we continue to see similar activity that we identified and highlighted in the January report. Those trends continue, much of that activity continues.
COLLINS: It’s my understanding that President Obama requested the report that was issued in January. Is that correct?
ROGERS: Yes ma’am he asked for a consolidated, single input from the IC as to the question did the Russians or did they not attempt to influence the U.S. election process.
COLLINS: So could you explain the difference between the requests from President Obama for that unclassified assessment and the allegations that President Trump requested that you publicly report on whether or not there was any intelligence concerning collusion between the Russians and President Trump’s campaign.
ROGERS: So, I apologize, I guess I’m confused by the question. Again, I’m not going to comment on any interactions with the President. I just don’t feel that that is appropriate. As I previously testified, I stand by that report.
COLLINS: Let me ask a broader question that I truly am trying to get a handle on. And that is how does the intelligence community reach a decision on whether or not to comply with a request that comes from the President of the United States? Obviously, you report to the President of the United States, and I’m interested in what process you go through to decide whether or not to undertake a task that’s been assigned by the President, by any President.
ROGERS: Off the top of my head, I would say that we comply unless we have reason to believe that we are being directed to do something that is illegal, immoral, or unethical, in which case we will not execute that.
